The 32 Greatest Unscripted Movie Scenes

Much to the dismay of screenwriters, movies scripts aren’t always set in stone. They are often like living objects constantly evolving during the filming process. Some films, like Jaws and Annie Hall, don’t even have a finished script when the cameras start to roll.

Actors and actresses are regularly ad libbing, improvising or going off-script while reciting their lines. Sometimes the directors hate it – other times they love it. Occasionally the improved lines become immortalized as some of the most memorable in cinema history.

Check out these 32 great unscripted scenes – you may be surprised at how many of your favorite lines were off-the-cuff.

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Filmster2 years ago

One of my favorites is missing here: the scene at the end of “Pirates of the Caribbean” where Captain Jack looks out to the sea and says “Now bring me that horizon” was improvised by Johnny Depp. Excellent!

Another great Johnny Depp adlib was the “Jar of dirt” song he sand in Dead Man’s Chest. That entire part of the scene, from the moment he popped up (after falling down the stairs) to when the cannons rolled out of the Flying Dutchman was entirely adlibbed. So all of the actor’s reactions were real! You can even catch Orlando Bloom glancing toward the crew to see if they would continue filming or not.

same movie different scene for me… Prior to being redeployed, drunk and psychotic in a motel room with nothing but a mirror and his mind. Booze was real. Blood was his own (Martin Sheen). Martin had been “drinking all day” and it was his 36 birthday. An actors struggling angst meets alcohol in a real south east jungle on an over budgeted pet movie!

The actor playing the gunship machine gunner in the movie was originally cast as Hartmann. Ermey wanted the part (he was on the set as a consultant), but Kubrick didn’t think he could pull it off. So Ermey made a 15 minute short as Hartmann using Royal Marines (as FMJ was filmed in England) for recruits. Not only did he stay completely in character for 15 minutes, but he didn’t repeat a single insult. When Kubrick saw the short, he pretty much broke the sound barrier getting Ermey signed. And the rest is history!

Katrina, you have to take into account the time period this was portraying. I am not confirming anything, just throwing the possibility out there that they MIGHT have addressed them as Drill Sergeants back then.

To write a column listing great improvised scenes and to not mention Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, A Mighty Wind, and Best in Show is to not understand the terms “improvisation”, “scene”, and “movie”. In particular, the audition scene by Parker Posey in the DVD extras of Waiting for Guffman is at once enthralling, horrifying, and is an entire scene, not a word or one line of dubious improvised provenance.

One that is left out is from Armageddon; where Bruce Willis’s character lists the requests of his team to which they will accept the mission(Michael Clarke Duncan’s character states he wants to stay in the White “Horse” but it’s the White House

There’s a scene from oldboy when the old boy is in bed in his new girlfriend’s house. The lady opens one of the boy’s notebooks and starts to read them and the boy gets up and snatches it out of her hands before proceeding to collecting the other copies as well. He then lies down on the bed but bangs the back of his head on the bed’s wooden frame. Despite being in pain, he does not utter a sound but he does hold the injured area. It was left in the film.

The explosion in the Dark Knight at the hospital was all scripted and planned. If you know safety and especially insurance on a film set…ALL EXPLOSIONS are carefully planned. The playing with the buttons by the Joker IS scripted. This is just an internet rumour that this scene is ad-libed. That’s all I got. The rest I can care less.

I’ve heard that Bane saying “That’s a lovely, lovely voice” during the national anthem in The Dark Knight Rises was improvised on set by Tom Hardy. I had a feeling that line wasn’t in the original script. I remember my theater laughing when I saw it for the first time.

let us not forget that special moment in harry potter and the champer of secrets where mr. malfoy adlibbed the line “let us hope that mister potter will always be here to save the day” and little denial Radcliffe immediately stepped forward and said “don’t worry, I will be.”

Yes ! This is one of my favourites ! Also I heard that Tom Felton’s “I didn’t know you could read?” was adlibbed in chamber or secrets too. Another of my favourite Harry Potter unscripted moments is the weird but brilliant Voldemort/Draco hug in the final film.

Paul Rudd and Seth Rogan did the “You know how I know you’re gay?” thing in 40 Year Old Virgin 2 years before Knocked Up came out. I haven’t seen Knocked Up, so I don’t know how it compares, but it wasn’t exactly an original idea.